THE DISABLED.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 70, 23 March 1935, Page 8

THE DISABLED.

I think "Allea" lias entirely miesed the point in Mrs. I. M. duett's letter, the idea merely being that "St. Leonard's" should either retain its own beautiful name or another be found that would be fitting for a home for disabled and invalid children. Infirmity of any kind is not a thing that calls for any great hilarity, and as I also have been in close contact with those afflicted in sight, mind and limb, in institutions and out of them, I can rotate with confidence that the majority of permanently disabled children and young people do dislike the word "cripple." However, the crying need at the present time is not for a controversy over words, but for a home (call it -what you will), .because it is a fact almost incredible that at the present time the only institution that keeps an open door for the lame, halt and feeble-minded alike in New Zealand is the Home of Compassion in Wellington, where several of my fellow patients from the King George V. Hospital now have found refuge. I would like to state, however, that only a few months ago a little girl of I;) (an infantile paralysis case) suffered a mental breakdown, and was sent to the Auckland Mental Hospital (there being nowhere else for her to go). With understanding treatment on the part of the doctors there she subsequently recovered from the latter ailment, and now. according to "AlleaV new treatment; she should not only be laughing at her infirmity, but styling herself a "looney." No invalid person wants sob-stuff charity, hut there is a dire need fc? a Lome and vocational training for the permanently-disabled children, preferably not tp be called a cripples' home, and it is of and for these, especially the motherless arid orphans, that I write and plead. GLORIA RAWLINSOX.